Hi Coby,
Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!
We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.
We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.
Important note!
Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.
If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.
Okay, let’s get started!
The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.
We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.
Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.
The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.
Regarding passion you picked Stage 6: I have an interest that is central to my identity. That is, what I do is an important part of who I am .
Regarding perseverance you picked .
As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.
Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.
In week 2, we looked at your interests.
Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.
Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.
Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.
In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.
You said your top three values were benevolence, tradition, and self-direction.
You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.
When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was agreeableness.
You said your top three talents were spiritual, kinesthetic, and social.
We then talked about goal hierarchies.
You said you felt totally clear about your top-level goal.
We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.
A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to .
Here is how self-concordant that goal was:
Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.
It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!
Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.
We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:
Work Smart
In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.
You WOOPed!
For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said Write a good report .
For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said Sense of mastery .
For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said Procrastinating .
For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: When I eat dinner, then I’ll start to report .
Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.
And here’s how much you learned
These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.
The important thing is that you learn something along the way!
In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.
You shared you’ve done daily practice in Talmud .
We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.
In week 8, we discussed feedback.
Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!
You said you felt Defensive when receiving critical feedback, and Defensive when receiving positive feedback.
We then turned to learning about stress.
In week 9, you reported feeling a moderate amount of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being schoolwork .
We also talked about adversity and failure.
Although related, adversity and failure are different:
Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.
However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…
Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.
And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.
We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.
Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.
You describe the habit you chose as Relationships .
Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.
Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?
So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.
In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.
Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.
Here’s how you described them:
You also wrote a gratitude letter to Parent .
In one word, you said it made you feel Good .
One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.
… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.
Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.
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Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?
Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.
| |
| This class is going to hopefully be a process of self-understanding and change |
| You need a romance period of sampling before you begin to hone in and integrate |
| Happiness is about being aligned |
| Goals are desired states of being |
| Plan for obstacles don't just have head in the clouds |
| Deliberate flow |
| Ask for advice! |
| Stress is a tool |
| Box 1 > box 2 > box 3 |
| Lean on others that helps with grit and everything else |
In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.
Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:
| |
| Quan Dao |
| Throughout the course, Colby has always been a warm, friendly and thoughtful member of the group. Having been his frequent discussion partner, I had the chance to learn his interesting views on life and how that deeply connects to his religion. He always showed sincere interests and dedication to class content as well as my personal sharing. It was truly a pleasure going through the course with Colby!
Colby’s Discovery Project truly reflected his insights and devotion to his religion. It was eye-opening to hear about Colby’s inspiration and meditation process. More importantly, I thought it was amazing how Colby led everyone through a quick meditation session yourself. From just a quick glimpse of that, it has inspired me to learn more about meditation and adopt it to my morning routine. |
| Ilana Jacobs |
| Coby has always been such a calming and pleasant presence to have around in the group. He was always extremely nice to everyone and always had a smile on his face. I also admire how dedicated to Judaism he is and how he is not afraid to emphasize those values. A lot of Grit Lab is centered around career success, and I think it was amazing that Coby chose to pursue spirituality not only for his discovery project but virtually in every aspect of Grit Lab. I also appreciated the interesting perspectives that he brought to conversations. He seems like the type of person to be very thoughtful and balanced in his perspectives.
Coby’s discovery project was one of my favorites. It was so interesting to learn about the meditation aspect of spirituality. In my life, I have done a lot of meditating but I have never meditated under a religious context. It was really nice to hear the new ideas that Coby discussed that helped us to transcend, such as how everything in the world has a purpose and we are all part of a bigger picture. Not only was the meditation super interesting, but it was also extremely affective. I felt super relaxed during the meditation, and Coby’s voice sounded like a professional meditation voiceover. He was a natural at leading a meditation session.
|
| Abigail So |
| Dear Coby,
It was great having you on my team for this semester! You always had very wise comments and led group conversations so seamlessly. You also answered so many of our questions about the book and class content with ease, which really helped with our understanding of concepts. I also heavily appreciate that you helped me think of a topic for my Discovery Project. I remember that I was speaking with you and admitted lots of confusion while choosing my topic. You helped me a ton in choosing something that I was genuinely interested in: dogs! I also appreciate that you took the lead in written activities that required the work of the team. It was great having a proactive leader!
I also really enjoyed your discovery project! Your meditation exercise in the beginning let me retain my focus and relax from the stress of finals. From your project, I learned that meditations does not need to be difficult or tiring. In fact, the meditation we completed together got me energized for the remainder of class. It was also interesting that you talked about not just meditation—but Jewish meditation. I learned about the psychological benefits of meditation, which are very practical for college students. Before college, I never really engaged in meditation because I was initially skeptical of its benefits. I gradually learned and became more engaged in the practice, and your presentation was part of this process.
Overall, I am very glad that I had you on my team and I wish you the best in your future! |
We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.
Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?
Drumroll please…
Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.
In any case, grit is not built in a day…
…remember that progress is never smooth…
…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.
With grit and gratitude,
Angela and the Grit Lab team.